Germany will help destroy Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons materials as part of an international disarmament program, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday.

The new Social Democrat (SPD) minister said countries with the technical capacity to help should not refuse.

"Therefore we in the German government have decided not to shirk our responsibility and to make our contribution. That means getting rid of part of the chemical waste," he said at a news conference with his Danish counterpart.

"The German armed forces have the technical capacity to do this in Munster," Steinmeier said.

Syria has agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by June after a sarin gas attack last August that Western nations blamed on President Bashar Assad's forces. Damascus blamed the rebels for the attack.

It has declared 1,300 tons of weapons to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which is arranging for them to be destroyed abroad. This week some chemical weapons materials started moving out of the country onto a Danish ship.